25 Days of Christmas Cross Stitch Freebies

There are a lot of great old cross stitch patterns on the Internet, and a lot of good free content if you’re willing to dig around for it.

I’ve had this link to a freebie page from Aurifil (which is a thread maker, apparently) for a long time, but I just clicked on it again recently and realized there was a whole set of little Christmas cross stitch patterns on it.

They were originally presented as a Christmas in July project, but you can grab the whole set or any of them that you like to stitch up just in time for the holidays.

There’s a whole array of projects, including:

gingerbread person
Christmas dogs and cats
stockings
make a wish with an ornament and candy cane
Christmas hats
letters to Santa
snowflakes
reindeer
a traditional Santa and a surfing Santa
Christmas trees made out of different shapes (and other Christmas tree projects)
mistletoe
ornaments
Merry Christmas with holly

There’s also a set of blackwork designs that looks like stars or snowflakes you can use to fill in the background on a project or use as an allover design.

The projects range in size and number of colors involved. The stockings one shown above, for example, uses five colors of thread and measures 46 by 44 stitches if I can count right.

You can stitch these projects as they are or combine designs to make your own Christmas samplers. Or just stitch a portion, such as a single one of these stockings, to make a Christmas ornament or greeting card.

You can grab all of these patterns, as well as a few other freebies, at the Aurifil website. Tip: click on the name of the pattern under the picture and it will automatically start a download of a PDF of the pattern.

[Photo: Aurifill]

Charts and Stuff is a small but fun Etsy shop with a cartoony style to its designs. Let’s take a closer look.

This shop’s designs are mostly silly and full of color. The rainbow colored hair is a common feature of a lot of characters, from a dancing woman to a reindeer, dogs and chickens.

As you scroll back through their designs (there are no categories but they also have fewer than 100 designs as of this writing, so it doesn’t take too long to explore) you’ll also find a series of patchwork designs that use similar bright colors but in a very different way.

For instance, this patchwork teddy bear cross stitch pattern. The pattern notes are low on details but it says the pattern comes out about 7 by 7.5 inches (that’s 17.78 by 19.05 cm) I assume on 14 count fabric. There’s clearly a good bit of back stitch involved as well as regular cross stitching.

These colorful designs would be a great way to use a lot of thread left over from other projects, because they don’t have to be the exact colors called for in the pattern. I could see the teddy bear with a ribbon that is the favorite color of the person you are stitching it for, for instance, and you can use pastels or more saturated colors, or a mix depending on what you have on hand.

In addition to the patterns already mentioned, there are a few blackwork designs, a set of season themed quotes, some word art in the shape of a heart and a cat, and some Christmas themed designs with the rainbow characters wearing Santa hats. There’s also a few of Santa riding a motorcycle if that’s something you’re into.

These cross stitch patterns are a lot of fun and look like they’d be great to stitch, so check out the pattern shop at Charts and Stuff on Etsy to see more.

[Photo: Charts and Stuff]

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